Hasegawa Jag XJS

[Spiny]

A small amount of progress this weekend. I'll start with the bits which involved least work, yet made the biggest impact. After losing yesterday for spraying due to the lousy weather we had here, today gave me the opportunity to get some clear onto the wheel wells of the chassis. That means all spray painting of the chassis is done now, so I could remove the masking. Of course, being a dark colour similar to the black of the chassis there was no overspray, unlike what would have happened if I'd done it in, say, white (!). I also got the beltline decals put onto the body. I'll admit this one was thing I really wasn't looking forward to as usually with long thin decals like this I end up tearing them - for once this time they went on really well and the main issue was getting them into the right place. So this is both chassis and body as they stand now.

 

 

However most of the time this weekend was spent making a start on the engine. I have the engine block painted, and was just about to add the sump when I noticed that what I thought was a hidden peg was actually an exposed part, so that is getting a little more paint. The right cylinder bank has also been painted and made up, just added Microsol after this photo so the decal is a bit less obviously decally now. There's also a few smaller parts which are mid-paint too - this is one of those engined which will take a while to put together.

 

 

Thanks for looking.

[Windy37]

Try cutting long decals into smaller sections . I do this and I find they are easier to move into position  . 

 Gary . 

[Spiny]

I went through that process with the Belkits Fiesta - much needed for the front decal on that one! But I never seem to get things properly aligned.

 

However, I've worked out (a bit slowly, but I got there in the end) that it's better to slide a long decal sideways off the backing paper rather than lengthwise - it was trying to pull so much decal and the resistance it had to the backing paper which was snapping them in most cases. Still doesn't mean I like long decals though, so many times you get one part aligned right only to realise that you've knocked another section out of line.

[Toftdale]

33 minutes ago, Spiny said:

However, I've worked out (a bit slowly, but I got there in the end) that it's better to slide a long decal sideways off the backing paper rather than lengthwise - it was trying to pull so much decal and the resistance it had to the backing paper which was snapping them in most cases. Still doesn't mean I like long decals though, so many times you get one part aligned right only to realise that you've knocked another section out of line.

Never tried that, but I've definitely snapped a few, thanks for the tip. Andy

[Paws4thot]

On 09/05/2021 at 20:53, Spiny said:

The right cylinder bank has also been painted and made up, just added Microsol after this photo so the decal is a bit less obviously decally now.

The Jaguar badge? I'd normally dry brush parts like that in preference to using decals if they have raised mouldings.

[Spiny]

23 hours ago, Toftdale said:

Never tried that, but I've definitely snapped a few, thanks for the tip. Andy

 

It's the first time I've tried it, and I was surprised how much better it felt, let alone worked. None of that feeling the tension in the decal and crossing fingers I've always had with long decals before.

 

 

23 hours ago, Paws4thot said:

The Jaguar badge? I'd normally dry brush parts like that in preference to using decals if they have raised mouldings.

 

No raised mouldings here, it's a flat surface (as in the real car). The photo above was taken before I added the Microsol, now I have added it it looks much better I'm pleased to say.

[Spiny]

Not the most productive weekend. The weather meant I didn't get any spraying done (every time this afternoon I thought I was going to get a chance, the rain came out so I gave up on it), That meant I only did work on the engine, and even that isn't showing much in the way of results.

 

First up, got the first step of the engine block completed with sump and (I presume) oil filler fitted in place:

 

 

Nothing special in that, or indeed in the next pic either, just bog standard painting, gluing and waiting for paint to dry. I have at least got the first cylinder bank on, but figured it was worth not jumping striaght into that to give better access for the bottle/pipe. At least it's starting to look like an engine now, if you view from the right angle.

 

 

Even if I had tried to rush forward, another stumbling block is presenting itself in the form of the chrome sprue, which seems to have a fair bit of flash. This is the first part, which is pretty typical, so it looks as though I will have to work around that. But the grille looks as though it's particularly bad when I get around to that.

 

 

At the moment it's soaking in bleach, and surprising me as it seems to be more of the dark red plastic under the chrome. Just got to hope that doesn't show through when finished.

 

Thanks for watching. Another week and I might finish Step 1 of the instructions!

[Deegee13]

Enjoying following this as I have built this kit. The engine has so much detail that I could not bring myself to 'hide' it in the engine bay of the model so I have it displayed alongside the car in my cabinet.

[Alan R]

Hi Spiny,

One of my pet peeves with tis otherwise excellent kit, was moulding the disc brakes on the chrome sprue!

For:

One. The chrome (and the apparent varnish on which it's plated) is so thick that you lose detail.

Two. If you don't remove it, paint doesn't adhere well to the shiny surface!

there are probably more reasons, but I have run out of rant-juice!

 

I tend to remove the chrome there days , and if it's meant to be chrome, I use Molotow chrome. So very useful.

 

I did this, this weekend on the brakes of the Bandai Lotus Esprit. You can see how they look on that build thread.

 

The only "chrome" that may remain on any of my models is the satin chrome you sometimes find on wheels. It's usually scale-appropriate.

As for the fuel injector/induction rail, I don't remember mine being that 'flashy'...

 

Anyway, good wook.

 

Cheers,

Alan.

 

 

[Spiny]

My impression so far of this kit is a that it's very good (as DG13 said), and it looks as though the engine will build up very nicely based on first impressions, but I do get the impression that the mould may be starting to tire as there has been a bit of cleanup so far - to me that's the main disappointment. There is a lot of flash on the chrome sprue (the number tag for the rail is totally surrounded by the stuff) but it does seem much worse on the runners than the parts so I don't expect it to cause too much in the way of insurmountable problems. I think I may need to change to some fresh bleach soon though as the rail has been soaking for a day now and is still only about 70% clear of chrome. But rest assured the brakes will be cleaned and painted, and I will be using the Molotow Chrome where needed.

[Spiny]

A little more progress this weekend - I've almost finished Step One of the instructions!

 

Started the weekend with an easy job - fitting the second cylinder bank onto the engine block. Just a little gluing and that was about it. i also got the fuel rails stripped (the old bleach had given up the ghost so had to finish off with fresh bleach) and, despite forgetting to dechrome what looks like a pressure release cap (not totally sure what it is) I got the two bits stuck together nicely. This bit is all painted now, just waiting for it to dry before the cap decal is applied and then it can go on the engine too.

 

 

The rest of the engine work was pretty simple really, just some painting and gluing only being held up by parts which needed different colours on them. The instructions only call for black and flat black, so for the black paint I've gone with gloss and satin black as I've seen fit. Not sure if I've got it all right, but it doesn't look too unrealistic,(although the close-up is absolutely merciless on my brush painting).

 

 

One bit which did look unrealistic (and I seem to remember Matt Bacon saying the same thing in his XJS build) is the fan, which looks extremely chunky. So I decided to try chamfering the ends of the fan blades (cut the angle with the scalpel, then sand to something like smooth). It's still chunky, but does at least give a bit more of a blade-like impression than it did before. We'll have to see how it looks with paint on.

 

 

And that's it for the building, but I did get an unexpected bonus with the weather in that I got a chance to get some paint sprayed. As the bumpers will need some flat black spraying I figured they were the highest priority so they got the clear coat before peeling off the masking. Going to give the paint at least two weeks to cure before I think about masking over the blue for the black spray. As you can see, I also did the bonnet. Unfortunately that has suffered a major attack of the orange peel. As I could see that forming, I have deliberately built up a good thickness of clear so I'm hopeful I can get that smoothed off to a respectable finish.

 

 

And that really is it for this week. Thanks for looking.

[johnlambert]

Nice work, I'm not sure if the blue is correct for the distributor cap?

[Spiny]

Probably not quite the correct blue (and I made the mistake of picking up the gloss rather than satin), but many of the Lucas caps were blue so I figured I'd just follow the instructions.

[johnlambert]

10 minutes ago, Spiny said:

Probably not quite the correct blue (and I made the mistake of picking up the gloss rather than satin), but many of the Lucas caps were blue so I figured I'd just follow the instructions.

Funny how I must have looked at lots of Jaguar V12s over the years and I've never noticed that.  Maybe they were all covered in grime?

[Fnick]

For the fan do you have some thin plastic card? I'm wondering if it is worth cutting the existing blades off and replacing them with something thinner. Or you could even try and sand them down once cut? Just a thought 🤔

 

Good job on the engine. 

 

Nick

[Spiny]

22 hours ago, johnlambert said:

Funny how I must have looked at lots of Jaguar V12s over the years and I've never noticed that.  Maybe they were all covered in grime?

 

Unfortunately, I fear it's probably more likely that I managed to find a picture of one that has had the dizzy replaced at some stage. Oh well, at least the blue is feasible, and I'm certainly not going to try repainting it or something else will end up blue as well! (and not just my language...😬 )

 

14 hours ago, Fnick said:

For the fan do you have some thin plastic card? I'm wondering if it is worth cutting the existing blades off and replacing them with something thinner. Or you could even try and sand them down once cut? Just a thought 🤔

 

Good job on the engine. 

 

Nick

 

Much as I hate to say it, bit the photo is after I'd cut and sanded the edges - the blades start off square edged but it looks as though I will be getting out the needle files to try to make the angle a bit sharper. Not sure I have the patience to cut off and replace each blade though. Something to have another go at next time I'm on the bench, this is one thing I can get at to sort out (or break!)

[Alan R]

HI Spiny,

I know what you mean about the cooling fan.

I have already cemented mine on to the engine and I am reluctant to pull it off and thin the blades. I think that once installed in the body, you won't be able to see much anyway...

 

Cheers,

Alan.

[Spiny]

That's what I'm hoping (about not being able to see much), as I have realised I've probably been thinning the wrong side. So the bit I've been thinning is the side facing the engine - on the bright side that is the bit you'll see as it looks as though the other (front) side will be buried in a shroud.

[Spiny]

Well this was a bad move....

 

Lovely evening today, and I had more energy than I usually do after work, so I thought it was a good choice to get a clear coat on the Jag what with the weather having been so rubbish recently. Mist coat and first two coats went on nicely, and then... my Inner Idiot made an appearance as I applied the third coat. "Hmmm, what's that spec of dust on the roof. I wonder if I can wipe it off before I spray the roof". Of course, it was already tacky with overspray so I ended up leaving a load more dust on it than there was in the first place.

 

 

The photo actually makes it (and the orange peel) look much worse than it is, but it's still annoying. The only saving grace is that with two mist coats and two wet coats having been applied beforehand, I might be able to sand it back without damaging the colour coat so I may just need a clear coat to finish it off after sanding. Fingers crossed.

[Fnick]

That's a pain in the proverbial...🤞indeed. It doesn't appear to be too bad so like you say hopefully a light sanding and another clear coat should do the trick. Oh and tell your inner idiot to leave the premises at once! 👉 Feel free to be more direct!😄

 

Nick

[Spiny]

23 hours ago, Fnick said:

... Oh and tell your inner idiot to leave the premises at once! 👉 Feel free to be more direct!😄

 

Nick

 

Sadly the great lummox has a habit of following me around however much I wish he'd sod off...

[Spiny]

It took a bit more sanding that I planned on, but eventually I got rid of the dust without getting through the clear coat. There may even be a chance that there's enough clear left to polish in a decent shine on the roof, but I think I'll play 'safe' and give it another coat next weekend (weather permitting) before polishing the whole thing.

 

Very little in the way of gluing this weekend, but I did get the fuel rails (scrap that, it looks as though they're coolant?) in place to finish step 1 of the instructions. Just need to slide it in from the end and add a bit of Extra Thin to fix in place - the hardest bit is not catching the coolant cap and flicking it out of place.

 

 

Equally, all the bits for Step 2 are painted now apart from some minor bits of touching up (even the dreaded belt assembly) so next week I should get a fair bit more assembly done.

 

 

But what really sucked the time was the bumpers - I think I must have spent over an hour masking off the blue before giving them a spray over with the matt black.

 

 

This will look better when I'm done as I think that the hot weather has caused the masking tape to have left some residue which I'll try to remove next week. I was worried at first that it had taken the clear coat off, but closer inspection under magnification shows it as being rougher than that woudl be without the sharp edges.

 

Thanks for looking.

[Fnick]

19 minutes ago, Spiny said:

I got rid of the dust without getting through the clear coat

Excellent! Good to know that is sorted. 🙂

[Spiny]

It's been far too nice weather this weekend to spend lots of time on the bench, so I didn't get lots of work done at the Jag. But the good news is that the little bit I did get done has made it look much better.

 

First up, that final layer of clear after the mistake a couple of weeks ago. The good news is that this has gone down nicely and will just need a polish now to get it looking right. Incidentally, the white balance seems to be a bit off in this picture, the real thing looks much more blue with no hint of green - the bonnet a few posts up gives a much better representation of how it looks.

 

 

The other progress was with the engine, and was relatively easy as it was just a case of sticking all the bits from last week together. The good news is that the engine is built now, and looks suitably busy - I know I could add even more to it but I don't think that would be condusive to me keeping my interest up.

 

 

Other than that the main thing has been stripping the brake disks and calipers. For the life of me I can't imagine why Hasegawa though chroming them was a good idea, but now it's all gone. One thing I have learnt from that too is that a bit of warmth can speed up the stripping process - I put them and the bleach in the conservatory and the stripping process completed in an hour even in old tired bleach. That stripped as much as leaving them overnight on the bench had done. Of course, this is probably not a good idea if you have a part which could warp easily!

 

Thanks for looking.

[Spiny]

A little more progress this weekend, and the front suspension is in.

 

Bit different to most of the other builds I've done in that Hasegawa have you put the springs and dampers into the subframe first. Then there is what I can best describe as a collar to hold the dampers in place as they're not glued at all, with the steering arm holding them together - trouble is that the dampers don't want to stay in place until the steering arm is fitted, and even then they're not particularly keen on staying there. So far, I would have to say it doesn't appear one of the easier steering systems to work with. But here it is in all its glory.

 

 

After that it was a case of fitting it into the chassis, where fortunately everything lined up as it should. As the chassis holds the other end of the dampers, things feel much more solid now with the subframe holding things in position. The brakes were originally chromed parts and, to be frank, looked rubbish. So they had the bleach bath last week and after some silver and aluminium paint have been added too.

 

 

And that's it for this week I'm afraid. Thanks for looking.